1

Introduction 1
1. Discourses, modes, media and meaning in an era of pandemic: A multimodal discourse
analysis approach 3
SABINE TAN AND MARISSA K. L. E

Introduction
Late in December 2019, the world first learnt about the outbreak of a cluster of viral pneumonia
cases in Wuhan Province, China. Soon after, on 9 January 2020, the World Health Organization
(WHO) reported that the Chinese authorities had identified a novel coronavirus as the cause of these
cases. The virus spread rapidly across the globe, and the out- break of the initially unnamed disease,
which eventually became known as COVID-19, was upgraded to a pandemic on 11 March 2020
(World Health Organization, 2020). No country was spared, and all aspects of everyday life have
been upended by the unfolding of the pandemic.
To stem the rise of infections, governments introduced lockdowns and border closures, and
international travel came to halt. People were com- pelled to stay at home and work and learn using
online video confer- encing platforms, wear masks and practice social distancing. To protect
themselves and others against the COVID-19 virus, the public needed to stay informed, following
advice given by official healthcare providers and government authorities amidst the proliferation of
‘fake’ news and misinformation circulating on social media channels. In short, the ways we think of
and experience the world, behave in it and express our varied realities have had to change rapidly in
tandem with the ever-evolving crisis.
This book examines various discourses, modes and media in circulation during this early period of
the COVID-19 pandemic, and how these have significantly impacted our daily lives in terms of the
various meanings they express that have come to form the (new) realities we experience and interact
with daily. Examples include how national and international news organisations communicate
important information about the virus and the crisis, the public’s reactions to such communications,
the resultant social media (counter-)discourses as reflected in social media posts and memes, as well
as the impact of social distancing measures on learning and education.
While the book offers a synoptic view of communication during the early phases of the COVID-19
pandemic, an examination of varied discourses, modes, media and meaning during the early days of
the pan- demic is necessary since it has led to new developments in the ways we came to experience
and adapt to a ‘new normal’. More than two years after the idea for this book was conceived, the
COVID-19 pandemic con- tinues to have a widespread impact on every sphere of our lives (e.g.
Nyland & Davies, 2022; Rogers, 2020; Timotijevic, 2020; Vyas, 2022).

Theoretical approach
To explore the varied meanings and realities engendered by COVID-19 discourses, this book adopts
a multimodal discourse analysis (MDA) approach. This approach, with its established theoretical and
analyt- ical frameworks – for example, Hodge’s (2016), Kress’ (2009) and van Leeuwen’s (2005)
social semiotics; Kress and van Leeuwen’s (2001) perspectives on the modes and media of
contemporary communication, and their seminal grammar of visual design (2006); Baldry and
Thibault’s (2006) and Norris’ (2011, 2014) conventions for transcription of multi- modal videos;
Machin’s (2007, 2013), Machin and Mayr’s (2012) and van Leeuwen’s (2008) multimodal
 2

approaches and tools for critical dis- course analysis; and many others – is ideally positioned to make
use of the vast trove of data available as entire nations, societies and individuals across the globe
work to reframe, reorientate and recalibrate a world that is forever changed by a pandemic of
proportions that many have never ever seen before in their lifetimes.
The utility of the MDA approach stems from how it can be used to investigate different forms of
varied meanings that emerge from the many different discourses, modes and media interacting with
one another. The MDA approach is useful in that it also considers the interaction between text,
image, video and sound typical of the digital era, and is thus an apt tool for examining how
discourses about the pandemic were represented across different spheres of professional and private
lives.
While discourses on multimodality have developed distinct and idiosyncratic – and sometimes
contested – interpretations of the terms ‘discourses’, ‘modes’, ‘media’ and ‘semiotic resources’ (e.g.
Bateman et al., 2017; Jewitt, 2016; Kress, 2009; Kress & van Leeuwen, 2001; van Leeuwen, 2005),
in this book these terms are approached from a more general perspective with a view to how these
are employed in COVID-19 discourses as resources for communication and meaning making.

Organisation of the book

The book comprises a total of 12 chapters including this introduc- tory chapter. The various themes
and topics that are explored in these chapters are arranged in four parts. Part I focuses on the use of
semiotic resources and discursive strategies for expressing meaning in static multi- modal media
about the COVID-19 pandemic, such as political cartoons and ‘graphic medicine’ comics. Part II
focuses on the affordances and appropriation of new media technologies in educational contexts and
the communicative effectiveness of public health information tweets. Part III focuses on the varied
communicative functions and strategies employed in dynamic media discourses about and during the
pandemic to inform and engage audiences on both a national and international level. Finally, Part IV
focuses on the wider communicative meanings and purposes of COVID-19 discourses, namely, how
they were reappropriated by the public as a means for delegitimising authoritative messages through
use of humour, and for co-creating semiotic knowledge through citizen participation.
Ultimately, the collection of chapters in this edited volume provides a snapshot of multimodal
communication during the early phases of the COVID-19 pandemic around the world, documenting
the effects the pan- demic had on many aspects of our daily lives, and which we are con- tinuing to
endure as the pandemic takes its course.

Part I. Use of semiotic modes/resources in COVID-1E discourses

In Chapter 2, ‘Stay at home’: Speech acts in Arab political cartoons on COVID-19 pandemic,
Ahmed Abdel-Raheem considers whether speech act theory and metaphor can be usefully combined
and extended to the study of multimodal artefacts and behaviours to arrive at a better understanding
of the evaluative meanings cartoonists express in their drawings. Using examples from a corpus of
250 coronavirus-related political cartoons extracted from the digital archive of the Arab satir- ical
magazine Tomato Cartoon, Abdel-Raheem explores ways in which multimodal metaphors were
employed in the cartoons in the corpus, and how these could be meaningfully interpreted as speech
acts. Highlighting the need to move beyond the traditional practice of perceiving political cartoons
largely in terms of negative comments or criticisms, the author draws on the principles of
sociopragmatics and multimodal metaphor (e.g. Bounegru & Forceville, 2011) to identify how
 3

speech acts pertaining to the COVID-19 pandemic were deployed multimodally in the cartoons. The
findings reveal that these extend beyond acts of judging and include many positive reactions and
behaviours such as thanking healthcare workers for their efforts and sacrifices in fighting the
coronavirus.
Chapter 3, COVID-19 communication as ‘graphic medicine’: A multi- modal social semiotic
approach, by Marissa K. L. E and Sabine Tan, explores the interactive meaning-making potential of
comics as graphic medicine (e.g. de Rothewelle, 2019; Green & Myers, 2010) by analysing a
selection of short comics from “The COVID-19 Chronicles” published by the National University of
Singapore (NUS). Adopting a multimodal social semiotic approach based on metafunctionally
organised frameworks as developed by Kress and van Leeuwen (2006, 2021) and van Leeuwen
(2005) for the analysis of images and other multimodal resources, the study investigates what makes
comics containing public health informa- tion about COVID-19 a potentially effective medium of
communication. The findings show how the strategic co-deployment of text and image in these
comics, together with the utilisation of the narrative form, helps to
(a) construct visual stories that simplify and gradually develop complex concepts for the general
public’s consumption, (b) engage audiences using affective appeal via humour and positive
appraisal, and (c) represent par- ticular actions taken by the Singapore government positively,
particularly with a view to the roles played by healthcare workers in managing a healthcare crisis
caused by the outbreak of COVID-19 in migrant worker dormitories.

Part II. Use of media/media technologies in COVID-1E discourses

In Chapter 4, Design considerations for digital learning during the COVID-19 pandemic: Losses and
gains, Fei Victor Lim and Weimin Toh consider how the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the
value of digital technology in educational contexts at a time when phys- ical interactions are
constrained. Taking into account the considerable challenges involved in the sudden conscription
towards digital teaching and learning during the pandemic, the authors discuss how the use of
semiotic technologies, such as video lectures, digital games for learning and social media platforms
such as Facebook in its appropriation as a learning platform, can be utilised to design positive
learning experiences for students. From the perspective of design considerations, the authors explore
the different ways of meaning making in digital learning – in par- ticular, how knowledge can be
represented, pedagogic relations expressed and learning organised through the affordances of
semiotic technologies. The authors then reflect on the losses and gains in digital learning that arise
from the use of these semiotic technologies, arguing that teachers in today’s digital era need to
expand their pedagogical repertoire beyond designing learning in the classroom to designing learning
in the online environment. The considerations offered by the authors in this chapter are a step
towards supporting teachers in designing effective blended learning experiences in the post-
pandemic education normal.
Chapter 5, Phraseology and imagery in UK public health agency COVID-19 tweets, by David
Oakey, Christian Jones and Kay
L. O’Halloran, focuses on the linguistic and visual resources used in UK public health agency tweets
for effective communication relating to the COVID-19 pandemic. Combining multimodal social
semiotic analysis (e.g. O’Halloran et al., 2019; van Leeuwen, 2005) with corpus linguistics, the
authors examine the phraseology and imagery in a corpus of UK public health agency tweets to
understand how linguistic and visual resources combine to shape these public health information
messages. Focusing on the n-gram as the principal textual unit of analysis, the authors aimed to
 4

(a) identify the most common phrases used by UK public health agencies to provide public health
information about COVID-19 on Twitter; (b) iden- tify the common images used with these phrases;
and (c) understand how both phrases and images function in these public health discourses. The
analysis showed that the most frequently used n-grams in these tweets often served to give advice or
instructions while presenting this more neutrally as information. The images that were combined
with these fre- quent n-grams tended to be photographs representing members of the public and
authority figures, procedural infographics, and posters with cartoon images. The authors observe that
the text in the tweets some- times appeared to be misaligned with the intended functions of the visual
representations (e.g. see also Chapter 11, this volume), thus affecting the overall effectiveness of the
public health communications.

Part III. Communicative functions/strategies of COVID-1E discourses

Chapter 6, Australian universities engaging international students during the COVID-19 pandemic:
A study of multimodal public communications with students, by Zuocheng Zhang, Toni Dobinson
and Wei Wang, examines how Australian universities engaged international students during the
COVID-19 pandemic on their websites, videos and text messages. Considering that universities have
stepped up their engage- ment practices to showcase their understandings of, and responsive- ness to,
international students’ needs amidst the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the authors investigate how
three Australian universities, namely, the University of Sydney, Curtin University and the University
of New England, used internet-based public communication channels as platforms for engaging
international students. The data included COVID- 19 information webpages, international student
webpages, news/events webpages, and/or Vice Chancellor’s video and text messages. Adapting and
building on Hyde’s (2017) definitions of student engagement by adding the element of
communicative acts, the authors used a multimodal discourse analysis approach (e.g. Kress & van
Leeuwen, 2006) for exam- ining the roles the three universities constructed for themselves in their
public communications, and the dimensions of engagement this provoked in international students.
The findings indicate that all three universities displayed high levels of pastoral care for their
international students, as attested in the large number of Informing and Supporting communicative
acts at critical stages during the pandemic. At the same time, the study found that other roles
included in cognitive engagement, such as pro- moting thinking, critiquing and reflecting, were
downplayed by all three universities.
In Chapter 7, “We are in this together”: Cultural branding and affective activations in a pandemic
context, Carl Jon Way Ng explores how leading airline companies such as Singapore Airlines (SIA)
and Cathay Pacific Airways (CPA) leveraged the themes of togetherness and solidarity in their social
media brand communications. Taking a social semiotics- informed approach (e.g. Kress & van
Leeuwen, 2006; Machin, 2007), he examines the multimodal strategies these two airline brands
employed to enact brand identities that index responsible social and corporate citizen- ship, and at
the same time place importance on attending to and ameli- orating the distress of fellow citizens. By
analysing two Facebook posts produced by these two carriers, namely, “We are in This Together”
(SIA) and “Your heroes, our heroes” (CPA), the author highlights the affective- semiotic work of
these brand artefacts in instantiating the broad contours of branding in a pandemic context. The
findings affirm trends and developments in branding, particularly the observation that much of con-
temporary branding is premised on affective messaging and management, while mentions of
products and services offered are downplayed, giving way to enactments of symbolic-affective
meanings and relations. In line with the social-semiotic perspective (e.g. Kress, 1985; Machin &
Mayr, 2012), he further considers the effects of such brand communications not merely as strategic
 5

rhetorical work, but as enactments that help to perform socially conscious brand personalities, with
brands not only presenting themselves as responsible corporate actors, but also as social citizens
attending to the distress of fellow citizens.
Chapter 8, Defamiliarise to engage the public: A multimodal study of a science video about COVID-
19 on Chinese social media, by Yiqiong Zhang, Rongle Tan, Marissa K. L. E and Sabine Tan,
focuses on the ways the rhetorical strategy of defamiliarisation (Shklovsky, 1917/2017) was
employed as an engagement strategy in a popular science video about the COVID-19 pandemic on
Chinese social media. Drawing on analyt- ical perspectives from multimodal discourse analysis and
social semiotics (e.g., Kress & van Leeuwen, 2001, 2006), the authors examine how the strategy of
defamiliarisation is realised semiotically in the video to frame and position subjects and events in
particular ways. By examining the multimodal construction of meaning at different levels of
discourse in the video, the analysis revealed that defamiliarisation operated on all three levels of
meaning – textual, interpersonal and ideational, as realised, for example, through juxtapositions of
meaning in the video’s structural organisation, different types of visual display in terms of their
modality value, the use of voice of authority and nostalgia, and elements of unex- pectedness in the
representations of social actors. The approach allowed the authors to demonstrate how the strategy of
defamiliarisation can potentially facilitate audience attention and affective engagement, while at the
same time enabling the communication of scientifically accurate and timely information. The chapter
highlights how a multimodal con- ceptualisation of defamiliarisation can offer a new perspective for
analysts and practitioners in science communication who are interested in how to engage the public
in novel and unfamiliar ways amidst the ‘infodemic’ of science news about the coronavirus and the
pandemic.
In Chapter 9, Beyond reporting: The communicative functions of social media news during the
COVID-19 pandemic, Yuanzheng Wu and Dezheng (William) Feng present findings from an
analysis of 232 news video clips posted by CCTV (China Central Television) News on TikTok to
highlight the multiple functions social media news perform in engaging the public with news about
the COVID-19 pandemic in China. Drawing on Matthiessen’s (2009) register typology of social
semiotic activities and Martin and White’s (2005) system of Appraisal, the authors demonstrate that,
apart from reporting the news, social media news performs a wide range of communicative
functions, such as sharing positive attitudes and emotions about the reported content, expounding
pandemic-related knowledge and recommending appropriate protective measures. The findings show
that, in their corpus, sharing was the most prominent activity, which serves to distinguish social
media news from traditional news. In terms of the realisation of social semiotic activities, the
findings also showed that the news posts were characterised by a prevalence of personalised and
emotional content in both language and images. As such, the study presents new insights into the
multiple activities and discursive features that served the social, political and educational functions in
man- aging the COVID-19 pandemic in China as shaped by the affordances of the social media
platform TikTok.
Chapter 10, Exploring strategies of multimodal crisis and risk commu- nication in the business and
economic discourses of global pandemic news, by Carmen Daniela Maier and Silvia Ravazzani,
endeavours to broaden the range of methodological approaches to multimodal communication by
proposing an interdisciplinary approach for investigating multimodal crisis and risk communication
in business and economic discourses that have appeared in the news media during the first months of
the COVID- 19 pandemic. Combining the social semiotic approach to multimodal discourse (van
Leeuwen, 2008, 2018a, 2018b) with approaches to crisis and risk communication (e.g. Coombs,
2012; Heath & Palenchar, 2016; Raupp, 2018), the authors develop an analytical model for revealing
the ways in which multimodal business and economic discourses in global news media function to
 6

legitimate and evaluate various versions of the unpredictable reality across blurred national borders.
They then apply this model to a selection of global news videos released during spring 2020 by three
international news channels, namely, CNN, The Economist and Financial Times, to examine and
reveal the fundamental role played by social actors as risk informers (e.g. journalists), risk bearers
(e.g. consumers), risk researchers (e.g. economists) and risk regulators (e.g. politicians) as they enter
the arena of global news with multiple discursive agendas in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.
By employing this taxonomy of risk-related roles, the authors demonstrate the approach’s utility in
enabling them to explain how the news media’s discursive selection of specific social actors with
specific expertise and experiences contributes to making sense of the pandemic’s risks and their
impacts from multiple perspectives. The findings also affirm the value of inte- grating insights from
risk communication research with a multimodal discourse analysis approach.

Part IV. Wider communicative meanings/ purposes of COVID-1E discourses

In Chapter 11, “Stay Alert, Control the Virus, Make Memes”: A multi- modal discourse analysis of
UK internet memes during the COVID-19 pandemic, Avery Anapol illustrates how, during the early
phases of the pandemic, internet memes in the UK were a popular means for the public to express
dissatisfaction and confusion about the government’s public health guidance to “Stay Alert, Control
the Virus, Save Lives”. Drawing on critical discourse analysis and multimodal social semiotics (e.g.
Machin, 2013), and informed by Jenkins’ (2006) concept of par- ticipatory culture and spreadable
media, the author examines the design of a selection of “Stay Alert” internet memes from a
multimodal per- spective. The analysis surfaces the strategies meme-creators adopt to cope with
stress and uncertainty in times of the pandemic, and for expressing dissatisfaction with the
government’s strategy for combating it. The results show that the analysed memes used humour to
frame the UK government’s approach to the pandemic as meaningless, confusing or insufficient.
While the memes highlighted the government’s public safety discourse of “Stay Alert”, on the one
hand, they simultaneously represented a counter-discourse of a confusing and irrational campaign, on
the other. In this way, the analysed memes exemplify how humour can be used effectively to
trivialise, and consequently delegitimise and subvert the government’s official narrative.
Lastly, considering how distancing policies and mobility restrictions put in place during the COVID-
19 pandemic have impacted people’s commu- nication and interaction practices and behaviours
worldwide, Chapter 12, Everyday acts of social-semiotic inquiry: Insights into emerging practices
from the research collective PanMeMic, by Elisabetta Adami and Emilia Djonov, presents the results
of a participatory analysis conducted in the collaborative research initiative PanMeMic:
Communication and Interaction in the Pandemic and beyond. Drawing on an analytical framework
that integrates social semiotics with key principles of citizen sociolinguistics (Rymes, 2021),
ethnography and van Leeuwen’s (2008) framework for analysing legitimation in discourse, the
authors analyse a sample of exchanges that took place on PanMeMic’s social media spaces on
Facebook, with a view to gaining a better understanding of the dynamics of semiotic practices that
are being co-constructed, shared and legitimated. The findings reveal how ordinary laypersons can
act as socio-semioticians themselves in not only creating, but also observing, describing, labelling,
supporting or opposing, and legitimating and negotiating semiotic practices, thereby co-creating
semiotic knowledge.
They also reveal the potential of an engaged, participatory approach to conducting research on
multimodality in opening spaces for forms of col- lective inquiry towards social change.
 7

In summary, the themes and topics around which this book is organised encapsulate the pandemic’s
effects across different dimensions of society, from the political, to the economic and the social. As
can be seen from these chapters, the pandemic has influenced communication patterns via the use of
semiotic modes and resources, and media technologies, conse- quently impacting communicative
functions and strategies, and leading to the construction of wider communicative meanings and
purposes. Such an influence, we argue, will have long-lasting effects as a result of the continuation
of the pandemic, with the disease likely becoming endemic. The phenomena examined in these
chapters, such as online learning, citizen sociolinguistics and de-legitimisation through the use of
humour, will thus continue to remain relevant in the foreseeable future. With the possibility of future
pandemics on the horizon, presenting this collection of COVID-19 discourses for examination to our
readers provides us with an opportunity to consider and prepare for issues involving multimodal
communication that will likely arise in similar situations to come.

PART I
Use of semiotic modes/resources in COVID-19 discourses 15
2. ‘Stay at home’: Speech acts in Arab political cartoons

on the COVID-19 pandemic17

AHMED ABDEL- RAHEEM
Operating within a sociocognitive framework, this chapter considered whether the notion of “speech
acts” can be usefully extended to non- linguistic artefacts and behaviours. Specifically, it presented
the results of a sociocognitive study of cartoon acts of judging pertaining to the COVID-19
pandemic, including crediting, thanking, accusing and warning. The chapter has also examined the
relationship between meta- phor and action. The overall aim was thus twofold: To consider whether
speech act theory can be extended to visual and multimodal mass com- munication and to show that
current cartoon studies need to go beyond classical definitions of cartoons in terms of negative
comments. There are several instances of performative metaphors in my data that urge positive
behaviours. For example, many cartoons thank health workers for their efforts and sacrifices fighting
the coronavirus outbreak.
In general, cartoon scholars and cognitivists in various disciplines should find the phenomenon of
multimodal metaphor and action per- tinent to their concerns. Future research into other
(sub)categories of non- verbal speech acts will certainly yield new aspects of editorial cartooning and
political actions that have hitherto been downplayed in verbal and verbo-pictorial contexts.

3. Communication as ‘graphic medicine’: A multimodal

social semiotic approach 42

MARISSA K. L. E AND SABINE TAN
This chapter has shown examples from the Singapore context of how the comic medium can be used
as graphic medicine, with such communica- tion employed to assist in the dissemination of accurate
information that aims to educate and motivate the populace to take appropriate action. The
advantages of the comic medium were evidenced in the discussion of the various analyses, showing
how the co-deployment of text and image, together with the utilisation of the narrative form helped
facilitate the simplifying and incremental development of complex information and model
 8

behaviours useful in the maintenance of public health via affective engagement strategies such as
humour. Furthermore, the analyses also showed how comics played a part in helping to manage a
healthcare crisis caused by the outbreak of COVID-19 in migrant worker dormitories by focusing on
the roles played by healthcare workers and migrant workers in making sure the outbreak did not
escalate further.
With the end of the pandemic yet in sight and the possibility of further viral variants emerging, there
remains a need for effective public com- munication of scientific and health information about
COVID-19. This is especially true with pandemic fatigue setting in, and as a result, indi- viduals
potentially being desensitised to public health communication about the COVID-19 virus. Perhaps
comics as graphic medicine, with their potential to provide viewers with culturally and contextually
rele- vant and accessible information that utilises affective engagement, can help address such a need
by breaking through the tedium, worry and fear of a continued pandemic situation.

PART II
Use of media/media technologies in COVID-19 discourses 67
4. Design considerations for digital learning during the

COVID-19 pandemic: Losses and gains 69

FEI VICTOR LIM AND WEIMIN TOH
This chapter has discussed the teacher’s use of three types of semiotic technologies, namely, the
ubiquitous video lectures, digital games for learning and social media platforms such as Facebook in
its appropri- ation as a learning platform to design the students’ learning experience. We have
discussed how the three types of semiotic technologies can be used by teachers to represent
knowledge, express pedagogic relations and organise learning through the affordances of these
semiotic technolo- gies. We have also reflected on the losses and gains in digital learning from using
these semiotic technologies. We argue that teachers in today’s digital age need to expand their
pedagogical repertoire beyond designing learning in the classroom to designing learning in the online
environment. The considerations offered in this chapter are a step towards supporting the teacher in
designing effective blended learning experiences in the post- pandemic education normal.

5. Phraseology and imagery in UK public health agency

COVID-19 tweets 89
DAVID OAKEY, CHRISTIAN JONES AND KAY L. O’HALLORAN
The research reported in this chapter has revealed that in UK public health agency tweets, linguistic and
visual elements are, predictably, interconnected through the common themes of preventing the spread of
COVID-19 through safety measures (i.e. working from home, getting tested, keeping socially distanced,
and washing hands). However, we have observed that the tweet texts and embedded linguistic text are not
always perfectly aligned with the images, especially in cases where infor- mation is provided in the form
of factual statements that are only vaguely related to the image. In this case, the most frequent n-grams
form core aspects of the messages, but these often function indirectly, and their illocutionary force can be
interpreted in various ways, unlike the pro- cedure graphics where the conditions and logical implications
are clearly articulated. However, procedure infographics are complex multimodal texts and need to be
directly linked to the accompanying tweet text, to be more effective. Additionally, there is a clear risk of
 9

redundancy and infor- mation overload if the tweet text merely repeats what is depicted graph- ically, and
a risk of misinterpretation if the text is repeated with minor changes within the graphics. While public
health tweets of this nature need to communicate their message quickly and with minimal ambiguity,
overall, the examples identified in this study suggest that the manner in which the most common n-grams
and accompanying images are used reveals that there is a great deal of ambiguity present.
This stage of the project has described the language and images used in public health messaging and the
nature of the text/image relations. As seen in this study, the text and images can function to co-
contextualise each other, in this case using the tweet text and images such as photographs, procedural
infographics, and posters. Key to such an approach is to ana- lyse the message through a multimodal lens,
analysing common forms and functions of language and how these interact with images to carry
ideational, interpersonal and textual messages. Although our focus has been limited and reasonably
narrow here, the language/image analysis methodology developed in this project can be applied to all
sources of information about COVID-19 (mainstream news, social media, govern- ment reports and so
forth). Insights into how phraseology and imagery in public health information are understood and acted
upon will lead to increased effectiveness of the linguistic and visual choices made in ensuing messages in
future pandemics.

PART III
Communicative functions/strategies of COVID-19
discourses 115
6. Australian universities engaging international students during the COVID-19 pandemic:
A study of
multimodal public communications with students 117
ZUOCHENG ZHANG, TONI DOBINSON AND WEI WANG
We began the study by asking how Australian universities engaged their international students amid the
COVID-19 pandemic and how a situated discursive practice perspective could shed more light on
university and student engagement. Our case studies of the engagement practices of the University of
New England, Curtin University, and the University of Sydney, through their public communications,
indicate that all three focal universities displayed high levels of pastoral care for their inter- national
students. This is attested in the large number of Informing and Supporting communicative acts observed
in the communications of the universities and the larger number of such communicative acts at critical
stages of the pandemic. The focus of the universities, through the com- municative efforts of key
academics such as the VCs, indicates a univer- sity stance which values connection, greater intimacy and
caring, which is in line with the literature which calls for a re-humanising of university academics and
their intersubjective experiences with students (Gilmore & Warren, 2007).
However, other roles included in Cognitive engagement, such as promoting thinking, critiquing and
reflecting, were downplayed by all three universities. This is evident in the minimal Cognitive
engagement instances identified in the linguistic and visual texts. While a calibrated degree of action is to
be expected in these extraordinary times of an unpre- cedented, urgent, high-risk situation, where rules
need to be conveyed and obeyed for the safety of all, and where student mental health is at stake, this
stance still challenges the accepted role of universities as encouragers and promoters of critical thinking,
in particular, during a crisis situation. This critique resonates with Zepke’s (2018) call to take student
engagement beyond prevailing neoliberal practices of focusing on engagement for practical ends (e.g.
 10

pastoral care to enhance student emotional experience), to encourage students to be reflexive of

prevailing practices and to ask questions about purposes and values of engage- ment. What will be
interesting to see is if the universities continue their Informing, Requiring, Advising and Supporting
stances post COVID- 19 circumstances, at the expense of encouraging and stimulating more Cognitive
student responses. Just as the Australian public is now resenting the “big brother” approach of the
Australian government to lockdowns and raising their voices against the Informing, Advising, Requiring
and Supporting messages coming through to them from all spheres, students may find their critical voice
once they tire of COVID constraints or when the crisis subsides.
Our study also demonstrates that the perspective of situated discur- sive practice provides a viable way of
analysing student engagement in naturally occurring interactions forming the basis for important
engagement practices at Australian universities. By analysing public communications with international
students, in terms of communicative acts and dimensions of engagement, we are able to specify the roles
and responsibilities that are constructed for the university and, in particular, the international student in
the nexus of their interactions. This critical discourse analysis explicitly highlights how engagement
involves both the university and the student in a joint undertaking, which has immediate and far-reaching
consequences (Kahu, 2013; Kettle, 2021) and provides insights at the ground level into the ways in which
multimodal communi- cation can be used to achieve different communicative ends.
Multimodal texts in the form of photographs and video messages have value added to many dimensions
of meaning, in particular, interpersonal and compositional meanings. At a time when student engagement
was pivotal, universities opted even more for these powerful multimodal texts to combat the educational
disruptions and uncertainties caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. There may, of course, be a more
practical reason for the use of video messages at USyd and Curtin University, where larger numbers of
international students mean there is more at stake for the universities and therefore a higher level of
investment on their part is required. USyd obviously has a greater share of Chinese students and,
therefore, while efforts to communicate with all international students on their campus were made,
Chinese students, in particular, were extremely well supported with multimodal material translated into
their first lan- guage. The videos show these universities attempting to reach out to international students
in an unprecedented empathic way, highlighting the capacity of Australian universities to develop a
human face, with the professional and personal entangled with one another and the univer- sity becoming
more of a “moral guide”, something normally associated with educational institutions in Asia (Phan,
2008, p. 6) and a role with which many international students from Asia would be familiar. It will be
interesting to interview international students from Asia about their reactions to these efforts.
In this chapter, we have demonstrated how three Australian univer- sities employed a range of texts,
communicative acts and multimodal resources to engage students, and particularly international students,
through public communication channels during the COVID-19 pan- demic. Using multimodal discourse
analysis, we made visible the tacit discursive strategies and practices that can be used by universities to
connect with their students. It seems VCs can become more than just figure heads and enact integral
communications directly with students, showing empathy and understanding for students’ experiences in
the process. This greater focus on directly supporting students in more explicit and accessible ways
should not be dismissed when COVID-19 is relegated to the backbenches of experience. Hopefully, these
explicitly informing and supporting approaches can also be complemented by the more cognitive
approaches expected of a university once the conditions of urgency subside.

7. “We are in this together”: Cultural branding and

affective activations in a pandemic context 141

 11

CARL JON WAY NG

Embedded within the cultural milieu, branding is an important cul- tural process subject to the dominant
discursive-ideological regime in which it takes place, leading to the co-construction of brands as cultural
products that speak to socially situated consumer-audiences qua citizen- actors. The COVID-19
pandemic is arguably a crisis that has reshaped our world, existing paradigms of thinking, and
consumption attitudes and practices, resulting in the performance of brand identities that are affectively
oriented towards the meanings and values of togetherness, solidarity, empathy, care mutuality and social
obligation. Such shifts can be said to be positive; if branding and brand communications, as a kind of
global ideoscape (Askegaard, 2006), have a structuring influence on consumer-addressee subjectivity,
then cultivating sensibilities that ascribe importance to social obligation and the collective interest (and to
the empowered, “heroic” agency oriented to these) can help to develop a social ethos based on healthier
and more ethical intersubjective relations, providing a basis for new or rehabilitated forms of identities,
relations and practices to emerge.
There is of course the possibility that this affective identity work taking place as part of branding remains
simply semiotic performances that will eventually revert with the recession and passing of the pandemic,
and that this expression and management of organisational and consumer affect remain largely a
manipulative business strategy. After all, businesses and corporate actors have had a patchy history of
duplicitousness that poses a challenge to public trust in the sphere of the market. However, crises are also
opportunities, and – unfortunate as it is – it is in this that the pan- demic presents an opportune moment to
fashion a more responsible and ethical socio-marketplace where the material practices of market actors
match the semiotics of branding so intentionally and strategically chosen and deployed. Consumer-
addressees need to continually scrutinise brands and hold them to their word, so that brands truly become
responsible corporate citizen-actors and not merely profit-seeking entities that engage in affective-
semiotic performances (in the superficial sense) only for pecu- niary business motives.

8. Defamiliarise to engage the public: A multimodal study of a science video about COVID-
19 on
Chinese social media 160
YIQIONG ZHANG, RONGLE TAN, MARISSA K. L. E AND SABINE TAN
This study has adopted the concept of defamiliarisation, interpreted from a social semiotic perspective, to
analyse the multimodal meaning construction in a science video about the COVID-19 pandemic on
Chinese social media. By showing the multimodal realisations of the rhetorical strategy of
defamiliarisation at different levels of discourse in the video, we have revealed how this strategy was
used effectively to represent subjects and events in “strange” and unexpected ways, requiring viewers to
re-examine their perceptions of what would ordin- arily seem conventional and familiar. The application
of the concep- tualisation of defamiliarisation in studying science communication discourse brings in a
new perspective for analysts and practitioners in science communication concerning how to engage the
public in the age of an “infodemic” perpetuating by unverified and unsubstantiated infor- mation about
the COVID-19 pandemic. The role of visual resources in achieving the effect of defamiliarisation
suggests that non-verbal resources are more likely to be used for emerging discourse practices, though
meanings are always constructed multimodally. While we are fully aware of the limitations of the present
study with only one video being analysed, we hope that the particular case will help to stimulate
reflections for further exploration in the increasing complex environ- ment of science communication.
Such reflections are more pressing than ever in this “infodemic” era.
 12

9. Beyond reporting: The communicative functions of

social media news during the COVID-19 pandemic 178

YUANZHENG WU AND DEZHENG (WILLIAM) FENG
This study provides new understandings of the multiple functions of social media news in the context of
the COVID-19 pandemic in China. Drawing on the multimodal discourse analysis approach, it explicates
the social semiotic activities of the news and how the activities are realized through multimodal
resources. Drawing on Matthiessen’s (2009) register typology, this study maps out the distribution of
social semiotic activities and the mixture patterns of different activities. It finds that sharing is the most
prominent activity, which exceeds the reporting activity and conse- quently distinguishes social media
news from traditional news. Moreover, the news posts also undertake the functions of expounding
pandemic- related knowledge and recommending appropriate protective measures. Three types of
interdiscursivity are identified, namely, the presence of multiple activities in different news posts, the
juxtaposition of different activities in one news post and the blending of activities mixed in one news
post. In terms of the realisation of social semiotic activities, the news posts are characterised by the
prevalence of personalised and emotional content in language and images. This study provides new
understandings of social media news as a form of discursive governance for managing the public health
crisis, which performs social, political and educational functions. It also explains how the multiple
communicative functions are shaped by the affordances of the social media platform of TikTok and the
social-cultural context in contemporary China. Methodologically, this study provides a framework to
explicate the social semiotic activ- ities involved in social media news and their multimodal realisation.
For future research, this framework can be applied to exploring the com- plex communicative purposes
and discursive features of different forms of communication on social media.

10. Exploring strategies of multimodal crisis and risk communication in the business and
economic
discourses of global pandemic news 201
CARMEN DANIELA MAIER AND SILVIA RAVAZZANI
Our analysis offers several points of reflection on the strategies of multi- modal crisis and risk
communication in the business and economic discourses deployed in global news videos during the first
months of the current global pandemic crisis. When various risk-related social actors are recontextualised
from reality into the business and economic discourses in the global news, the multimodal
recontextualisation takes various forms. The risk gen- erator, that is the virus, is obviously at the centre of
such discourses and of the sensemaking processes that have been discursively employed in all videos.
The multimodal recontextualisations of this risk generator are meant, in particular, to highlight the
dramatic consequences for risk bearers and the implications for risk researchers and risk regulators. The
verbal and/or visual identification, nominalisation and functionalisation of risk informers are meant to
legitimise the validity of their statements and the additional visual information that is displayed on-screen
related to other social actors and/or actions. The various multimodal recontextualisations of risk bearers
as identifiable individuals, unidentifi- able individuals or associated groups are meant to witness their
existence and role in the pandemic crisis both in specific situations and globally. The recontextualisations
of both risk researchers and risk regulators are meant to legitimise multimodally the sensemaking
processes that are employed when crisis-related social actions are in focus. From our interdisciplinary
perspective, these findings emphasise the soundness of integrating in multimodal discourse analysis the
 13

social dramaturgical approach belonging to risk communication research to distinguish and make sense
of the variety of agents and risk-related roles allocated to them in news media discourses (Palenchar et
al., 2014; Palmlund, 2009). The retrospective, synchronous and prospective sensemaking processes are
discursively materialised especially through multimodal theoretical or effect-oriented rationalisations that
evaluatively clarify the causes, development, probable consequences and possible future solutions of the
business and economic havoc created by the global pandemic crisis. These findings underline the validity
of adopting, in an interdisciplinary effort, also the sensemaking approach belonging to crisis
communication research to label, stabilise (Weick et al., 2005) and interpret complex phenomena such as
crises as multimodally represented in news media discourses (Höllerer et al., 2018; Maier & Ravazzani,
in press). All in all, these multimodal recontextualisation strategies shape communicatively the viewers’
understanding of the global pandemic crisis by enabling or constraining certain sensemaking processes
and by including specific risk- related social actors. Such multimodal recontextualisation strategies in
global news media discourses have not only communicative functions but also constitutive ones, as
certain unsettling versions of reality emerging from the screen are supposed to be accepted by bewildered
and worried audiences due to the discursive force of these videos.
The empirical material and the systematic analysis explained in this chapter show that a call for drawing
upon a broader set of theoretical perspectives to be included in and combined with multimodality
research could be appropriate. In this chapter, combining multimodal discourse research with theoretical
perspectives from other fields such as crisis communication and risk communication has given us the
possibility to reveal how social actors and social actions are recontextualised by global news media to
make sense of an unprecedented crisis with still incompre- hensible risks. Similar interdisciplinary
approaches could be influential also in future research, for example by explaining and combatting the
dangerous multimodal infodemic (Gao & Basu, 2020; WHO, 2020a) of the present pandemic era that is
spreading across all media; as well as by delving into the multiplicity of voices that communicate to,
with, past, against or about each other (Frandsen & Johansen, 2017) in virtual dis- cussion arenas such as
social media. To conclude, based on the present research endeavour, we consider that such
interdisciplinary approaches can complement, reinforce and refine the existing multimodality research
agenda.

PART IV
Wider communicative meanings/purposes of COVID-19 discourses 225
11. “Stay Alert, Control the Virus, Make Memes”:

A multimodal discourse analysis of UK internet

memes during the COVID-19 pandemic 227
AVERY ANAPOL
The coronavirus pandemic is unique in history as a global event of this scale, experienced by billions of
people online. During this time, memes have been both a source of entertainment for quarantined
individuals and tools for expressing frustration, confusion and fear about the pan- demic and the
government’s strategy for combatting it. While this study looked specifically at the UK, the memes that
have emerged in other regions are worthy of future study, representing specific discourses and feelings
about the world that are culturally specific and shareable. Further research might draw more attention to
the semiotic resources used in viral memes to explore how other aspects of the world under COVID-19
are represented in public discourse. Over time, studying internet memes in the context of the coronavirus
 14

may reveal significant insights about human behaviour during the pandemic – for example, if a certain
meme prompted a behaviour change that directly impacted the number of cases in a region.
While films, television, books and other media are certain to emerge as a creative record of life in the
pandemic, they may not fully encompass all of the public discourses that emerged during this time. The
public view of “Stay Alert” is an important part of the COVID-19 era, and this view is captured clearly in
social media discourse, including the memes in this chapter and others. As the analysis has shown,
memes can subvert and delegitimise the government’s official narrative. Uncovering the meaning of
these memes is necessary if we are to fully understand the public’s experience of the COVID-19
pandemic.

12. Everyday acts of social-semiotic inquiry: Insights

into emerging practices from the research collective PanMeMic 245

ELISABETTA ADAMI AND EMILIA DJONOV
Forms of participatory multimodal research are not new (see for example Jewitt et al., 2016; Jewitt et
al., 2020; Potter & Cowan, 2020). The case we are making here, however, shifts the perspective from
participants involved in academic research to all people as agents in and contributors to everyday
acts of social semiotic inquiry, and to our own engagement, as academic researchers, in these acts.
Stemming from Rymes’s citizen sociolinguistics, which “recognizes everyday conversations about
language as not only an area of inquiry, but also a locus of expertise and a means of sharing
knowledge” (2021,
p. 24), we shift the focus from language to semiotic practices in their multimodal range. The case of
PanMeMic examined here shows people’s role as socio-semioticians themselves, in not only creating
but also witnessing, describing, supporting, evidencing and counter-evidencing, labelling/codifying,
legitimating, counterarguing and negotiating semi- otic practices and, in so doing, co-creating shared
semiotic knowledge. In PanMeMic, we have offered a space for everybody to shape and par- ticipate
in, irrespectively of whether they are academics or not, let alone professional semioticians, as even
those of us who are multimodalists, linguists and communication scholars have been sharing and
discussing our own and others’ personal, localised everyday experiences and perspectives.
From the perspective of traditional multimodality research, the validity and generalisability of our
findings are limited. Drawn in through the founding team’s personal networks of Facebook friends
and colleagues, PanMeMic’s Facebook group, albeit transnational, is possibly restricted in
demographic variables such as its members’ age or education levels, and the range of their views;
and yet the second exchange we analysed still represents very different positions and some
polarisation in relation to conflicting discourses (i.e. the tension between countering anti-maskers to
contribute to ensuring collective safety vs legitimising the commu- nicative needs of discriminated
and marginalised social groups). Most importantly, from our perspective, the findings from
collective, everyday acts of socio-semiotic inquiry gain validity “through participation in this
community” (Rymes, 2021, p. 99); they are contextual, detailed and rele- vant to people themselves
who contribute to such forms of multimodal research.
The analysis of PanMeMic discussions is brought here not as a case study per se but rather as an
example of the diffused and distributed semi- otic knowledge that is present, shared, negotiated and
co-constructed every day, and of how this is done, through description, evidencing, codification,
provision of variants, and through forms of legitimation that bring in one’s own personal experiences
 15

as well as other voices. In this, the affordances of social media platforms offer some advantages.
They allow for open conversations drawing in different voices through the sharing of links and
multimodal forms of expression, thus enabling co-construction of knowledge beyond writing,
through multimodal legit- imation also by showing, through “demonstration” (for example, the video
that Anzir shared as a comment, to make his point in the discus- sion). While we all observe, discuss
and comment on semiotic practices all the time, offline as well as online, social media enable reach
beyond “the pub chat”. Firstly, because they make possible the transnational coming together of
diverse voices in “affinity spaces” (Gee, 2005). This affords the consequent potential sharing and
spreading of semi- otic practices beyond the limitations of physical space and movement. Besides the
case of the backpack hug, which “travelled” from Italy to Canada, many discussion threads in the
PanMeMic Facebook group had participants sharing semiotic practices taking place in their coun-
tries, with other members commenting on how these compared with practices in their own areas. It
also enables views beyond those in our immediate personal networks to interact. In the discussion on
masks and sign language, for example, Emma’s intervention as a hearing-impaired person offered a
key perspective on the issue for the other – all hearing – participants to consider, potentially
enriching their exposure to diverse experiences beyond not only national but also other sociocultural
group boundaries. Secondly, social media make it possible to track and record as well as offer open
access to such interactions, to an extent that would be difficult to achieve for interactions occurring
offline.
The case of PanMeMic is also different from more traditional (multi- modal or not) discourse
analysis of online discussion data. As researchers, we not only offered a space for but participated
ourselves in informal discussions with other members of PanMeMic (see Elisabetta’s comment in the
second example analysed). This has created opportunities for all of us, both multimodality scholars
and those who have a personal interest in discussing semiotic and interactional practices, to engage
in a col- lective inquiry and invite others to join the dialogue. We further invited members of the
group to verify our interpretations of the discussion and to check, further discuss and contribute to
the analysis presented in this chapter. We joined in the conversations with others, generating
relational ways of inquiry and mutual learning that are very different from both the methods and the
outcomes of any textual analysis or covert observation methodologies.
Responding to the theme and concerns of this volume, we hope our contribution has shown that
discourse analysis can be used not only to identify how discourse shapes reality ideologically, as
critical discourse analysts do, but also, as in our case, to find insights into semiotic practices that are
being co-constructed, shared and legitimated while being talked (or written) about. Even more, our
findings show everyday people’s contributions as discourse analysts, as the exchanges examined
reveal analytical insights and critical approaches to discourse that people show when participating in
discussions. Together with its usefulness, our ana- lysis shows also the limitations of discourse
analysis, and how involving the text producers themselves offers further insights as, in the backpack
hug example, confirmation that a semiotic practice being talked about has actually been used by one
and has instead been replaced by its first proponent. In sum, we believe we have offered a glimpse
into the benefits of adopting an ethnographic, engaged and involved approach to partici- pating in
discourse and its analysis.